India should deal with much serious issues instead of “beef consumptions” says an Indian priest

An Indian Christian priest urges the government to look into much serious issues apart from “beef consumptions”

According to details, Cardinal George Alencherry-Head of the Syro-Malabar Church in India. He was of the opinion that consumption of beef is not that important issue because the religious minorities in the country are facing much bigger issues.

“India has more serious problems to deal with, rather than waste time arguing about people’s eating habits” he said. Seeing current debate over consumption of beef, along with ongoing tensions regarding the lynching of a Muslim man over beef consumption.

“When there is conflicting information which comes from different religious communities on these issues, society should discuss and come to an amicable agreement”, he said.

He strongly asserted that there are frequent incidents of religious intolerance in the country. At this occasion, he insisted that the government and media should not be giving “sensational” importance to such trivial matters. He said that giving importance to such inconsequential matters will definitely harm the social and religious agreement in India.

Earlier in October, a heinous incident was reported, when a 50-year-old, Muslim man, namely Muhammad Akhlaq was lynched by a mob of radical Hindus who were infuriated because of suspicion that he ate beef. Cow is considered sacred in Hinduism, and seeing the Hindu majority in India, slaughter of cow is banned in some states of India.

The mob suspected that he had preserved beef and was regularly consuming it. The Muslim community is believed to be responsible for the trade of cows. The Indian state of Maharashtra, had banned consumption of beef. According to this law, the slaughter, sale or consumption of cows and bulls is strictly prohibited.